Polytechnic Institute of Vienna. 381 
‘maker; screw-cutter and worker in metals ; oftclock-making, 
watch-cases, wire-drawing, gilding, &c., are in the collection ; 
and, what is particularly interesting to an amateur in 
ihe arts, there are two complete assortments of turning instru- 
ments, one made by British workmen, and the other by artists 
in Vienna. The apparatus of the brass founder, goldsmith, 
and a crowd of others. are also included. This collection | 
is not only useful in the lectures on technology, but as they 
consist chiefly of foreign instruments, especially English, lit- 
tle known in the country, they afford to German workmen 
the most favourable opportunity of profiting by the know- 
ledge of foreign skill. 
Asa society of encouragement, the establishment has not yet 
fulfilled the design of its institution. It appears that the pro- 
fessors and their adjuncts, occupied with their courses of in- 
struction, and with the classification of the objects of the mu- 
seum, have not yet decided, or even proposed, any premiums ; 
at_least the annals make no mention of any. They have, 
however, been very useful as a committee of consultation, 
and have given their advice on 400 or 500 questions, which the 
rovernment has submitted annually to their enlightened deci- 
sion. They have proposed important alterations in the law 
of patents, in the operation of which there is now much less 
abuse. Accordingly the number of patents, which had been 
only fifty-eight from 1815 to 1820, rose in 1821 to one hun- 
dred and eight, and in 1822 to one hundred and sixty-eight. 
At the expiration of their respective periods, they will be 
rendered public through the medium of the printer and en- 
graver, in the Annals of the Institute. One thing is worthy 
of remark, and that is, that the first attempt at gas illumination 
on the continent of Europe was made in 1817, by the direction 
of the polytechnic institute. The halls of this vast establish- 
ment have been lighted, since that period, by the new pro- 
cess, and with the most complete success; and from this ex- 
ample other public edifices, and even many streets, and 
places in Vienna, are now lighted in the same manner. The 
edifice of the institute is heated by steam, which circulates in 
tubes which pass through all parts of the building; the coak 
arising from the distillation of the coal is consumed in the 
workshops of the establishments. Navigation by steam, 
which is now regularly established on the Danube, and on the 
Adriatic between Trieste and Venice, is also indebted to this 
mstitution, 
